Southport Councillors Push for Underground Broadband Infrastructure

Southport councillors, Mike Prendergast and Mike Morris, are calling on all political parties in Southport to support the installation of broadband infrastructure underground rather than on telegraph poles as proposed by Openreach.

A recent press release to local media from another political party has criticised the contractors currently installing broadband cabling in the ground on behalf of Virgin Media.

Councillor Mike Prendergast, representing Dukes Ward, said, “It’s really important, and I would say this is true of most councillors in Southport, that we don’t have our residential streets blighted by unsightly telegraph poles. 

They’re ugly to look at, we’ve never had them in Southport and longer term, with increased capacity issues in future, the broadband cables they support will need to go in the ground anyway.

Residents across Southport have made it very clear, with an incredibly organised and hardworking group, that they don’t want our streets full of telegraph poles.

Right now we have contractors working their way across Southport installing cabling in the ground on behalf of Virgin Media. This is how we want this infrastructure installed.

This is a massive infrastructure project and there will no doubt be some issues that arise, in terms of notifying residents and fixing pavements for example, but it’s vital that we have this infrastructure for residents and local businesses if we want our economy to grow.

Myself and Councillor Mike Morris have met with the contractors and residents, and whilst no infrastructure project is without problems, I was impressed with the levels of engagement with residents and local representatives from the contractors.”

Councillor Mike Morris, representing Cambridge Ward, said, “I’ve been working with residents for months now to stop telegraph poles going up in Southport. We want to see the cabling in the ground not overhead.

The contractor carrying out the work have assured us that the reinstatement works they carry out will be up to standard and if any defects are found they will look to rectify them quickly.

It’s right to say that the council should make sure that contractors fix pavements and highways where they’ve been working. But what we don’t want is to put off a contractor who is, in effect, delivering what Southport needs; broadband cables in the ground where they should be.”